Spectrum Computing

I really like the humour, setting, originality and graphics of Urban Upstart, but I was put off by the Spectrum 2.0 reviews that said the engine was too slow. It deserves a proper go, even if it involves pressing the turbo button in the emulator a lot, or playing at a higher MHz.

BTW another nice little adventure I decided to try is Trixie's Quest (https://spectrumcomputing.co.uk/index.p ... 6&id=10950), a charming adventure by Arthur Simmons that uses Quill with no graphics.
It is short but quite challenging, due to the use of some very specific commands. Fortunately there is a walk-though available that helps with the more obtuse ones.





Interesting enough the game has no release year.

Dragonfire.



A bit of a howler this one, but there is a twinkle of a decent game here. Keys OP, A-duck, Spc-Jump. At first, it seems impossible to get into the castle (and occasionally it is), but you get used to it. Then you enter the castle and nick all the items while the dragon fires at you. Then back to screen 1.

That's it. Two screens repeated at increasing difficulty. I first hoped there were a lot more screens and was reminiscent of hunchback.

While none of the reviews are good, some of them seem generous. Your Spectrum magazine was the most honest:

Dragonfire has got about as much future as the feudal system.

A real contender for Turkey of the Year Award

How they ever managed to write this code in such a way that you need 48K to run it, I'll never know.

Ouch!

R-Tape wrote: ↑Sun Mar 01, 2020 4:28 pm

Dragonfire has got about as much future as the feudal system.

Lol..this is why I love the old mags

I think I played this recently in Atari 2600 High score club. I thought it unbelieveably tedious but it seems to be big in Atariland.

Having said that, it's still better than the pointless (albeit beautiful), 0-gameplay castle minigame from Defender Of The Crown...

New Cylon Attack (by A'n'F software)



An interesting 3D spaceship shooter. Simple but cool.

Suitable game of the day: Gerry the Germ by Firebird.

Juan F. Ramirez wrote: ↑Fri Mar 13, 2020 6:57 am Suitable game of the day: Gerry the Germ by Firebird.

That's a depressing omen Juan! Gerry the Germ is impossible!

Has anyone actually managed to collect the oxygen bottle on screen 1? None of the magazine reviewers seems to have managed it.

Think I'll stick to Fantastic Voyage, or maybe Hermitage.

R-Tape wrote: ↑Fri Mar 13, 2020 10:08 am

Juan F. Ramirez wrote: ↑Fri Mar 13, 2020 6:57 am Suitable game of the day: Gerry the Germ by Firebird.

Think I'll stick to Fantastic Voyage, or maybe Hermitage.

Fantastic Voyage!!! How could I forget it???

Cannibals From Outer Space by Summit Software.



From Charles Bystram, the author of Brian Bloodaxe, Psycho City and Wulfan the Barbarian, another cool isometric advventure.

Escape by New Generation



An old, cute gem from 1982. Find an axe in a 3D labyrinth and escape! Different levels of difficulty.

With the recent discussions on the Coronavirus (COVID-19) thread, I thought this would be a good one to get playing:

Toilet Trouble from Automata UK Ltd (UK)

https://youtu.be/QQ9GhBs0m-c

https://spectrumcomputing.co.uk/index.p ... 96&id=5311



I love the title of the first screen.. You can't beat the Cistern

Juan F. Ramirez wrote: ↑Mon Mar 16, 2020 7:25 pm Escape by New Generation

An old, cute gem from 1982. Find an axe in a 3D labyrinth and escape!

Spoiler

[media]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ko-SnYrjS2E[/media]

WTF???

The Colditz Story by Atlantis Software.



A funny game made up of mini-games. Some of them are rather difficult. The screen in the pic is probably the furthest I've ever gone.

Aquarius by Bug Byte



A crappy but funny idea behind this game: turn Scuba Dive into an horizontal shooter. Not bad.

Juan F. Ramirez wrote: ↑Thu Mar 19, 2020 8:15 pm Aquarius by Bug Byte



A crappy but funny idea behind this game: turn Scuba Dive into an horizontal shooter. Not bad.

Used to quite like it, one of those first early games I played I think. Used to find I'd keep forgetting the code sequence when I got to the end.

Morkin wrote: ↑Thu Mar 19, 2020 10:39 pm Used to find I'd keep forgetting the code sequence when I got to the end.

Yeah, that's weird. A code is shown at the beginning of the game but I still haven't reached the moment in which I'm asked for it.

Xenon by Melbourne House



Great shooter.

Juan F. Ramirez wrote: ↑Sun Mar 22, 2020 2:41 pm Xenon by Melbourne House



Great shooter.

Indeed. Best played on a 128K, with the AY. When I played it on real hardware, I thought the framerate was faster too (I assumed paging had something to do with it), but I've just re-checked in an emulator and the 48 and 128 seem to be the same.

I've said it before and I'll say it again, it's a damn shame they didn't have the "sector 1" guy zoom in and out. The 128K would have had memory for digitised speech too.

I got to know this on the Amiga, and I'm afraid nothing's going to beat that. AY's going to struggle to reproduce that guitar riff.

By the beard of Zeus! All these years and I just learned you can switch between the crawling and the flying thingamajig!

Ast A. Moore wrote: ↑Sun Mar 22, 2020 6:26 pm By the beard of Zeus! All these years and I just learned you can switch between the crawling and the flying thingamajig!

Whaaaaattt?!

Ast A. Moore wrote: ↑Sun Mar 22, 2020 6:26 pm By the beard of Zeus! All these years and I just learned you can switch between the crawling and the flying thingamajig!

Me too. I realized it when I had to watch the YT walkthrough as I hadn't been able to pass zone 1

R-Tape wrote: ↑Sun Mar 22, 2020 7:26 pm

Ast A. Moore wrote: ↑Sun Mar 22, 2020 6:26 pm By the beard of Zeus! All these years and I just learned you can switch between the crawling and the flying thingamajig!

Whaaaaattt?!

I know, right?

We really are so bad at reading instructions

Our excuse back in the day was presumably that we'd (ahem) 'mislaid our inlay card'...